Differential looking and manipulation were assessed in 44 six-month-old infants who were presented with familiar and novel visual stimuli. The infants looked at the novel stimuli longer. (ST)

To establish the spatial generality of perseverative errors in infant manual search, a group of infants aged 8-11 months performed Piaget's Stage IV task with an object hidden at successive locations in the vertical plane. (Author/JMB)

Reports on three experiments showing the crucial importance of the "half boundary" in children's proportional judgments. Concludes that the concept of "half" plays a crucial role in children's early proportional reasoning and that the half boundary is similar to, though not as powerful as, the category boundaries discovered in…

This study investigated 3- and 4-year-old's understanding of the relationship between pretense and mental awareness. In Experiments 1 and 2, only a subset of 4-year-olds recognized that sleeping characters and characters ignorant of their appearance were not pretending. However, these experiments had certain linguistic demands, which potentially…

Four experiments were conducted to investigate the development of visual accommodation in one- to three-month-old infants. Accommodation responses and pupil diameters were measured at various stimulus distances. Results suggest that changes in depth of focus in the first three months are largely responsible for growth in accommodation. (Author/SS)

Adults use both first-order, or categorical, relations among features (e.g., the nose is above the mouth), and second-order, or fine spatial relations (e.g., the space between eyes), to process faces. Adults' expertise in face processing is thought to be based on the use of second-order relations. In the current study, 5-month-olds detected…

To examine the ontogeny of emotional face processing, event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded from adults and 7-month-old infants while viewing pictures of fearful, happy, and neutral faces. Face-sensitive ERPs at occipital-temporal scalp regions differentiated between fearful and neutral/happy faces in both adults (N170 was larger for fear)…

Examines discrimination of geometric shapes by three-month-old infants who were presented with geometric stimuli moving laterally at two different velocities. Finds that subjects discriminate between geometric forms at velocities that, according to previous findings, might interfere with shape discrimination. Discusses the possible interactive…

Infants were able to discriminate between bah" and gah" syllables, indicating that linguistic-perceptual capacities are present during early life. (WY)

Visual preference procedures were used to investigate development of perceptually based subordinate-level categorization in 3- to 7-month-old infants. Experiments 1 and 2 demonstrated that 3- to 4-month-olds did not form category representations for photographic exemplars of subordinate-level classes of cats and dogs (i.e., Siamese vs. Tabby,…

A study of the use of multiple form dimensions in pattern classification by children in Grades 2 and 5, and adults. Reliability of classification, number and saliency of features selected, and accuracy with which they were used all implied continuous development of perceptual skills. (Author/ED)

Thirty elementary school students were assigned to one of three experimental conditions, (labeling, imagery, or control) in a pattern reproduction task. (ST)

Class-inclusion in first grade children was studied by using part-whole comparisons of families of stimuli (e.g., dogs). Results indicated that it was easier to make part-whole comparisons for the family relation than for the class-inclusion relation. (ST)